


It's More Dangerous To Lose Than Win

by afteriwake



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: BAMF Alfredo, BAMF Joan, BAMF Marcus, BAMF Sherlock, Battle of the Minds, Best Friends, Case Fic, Creepy Stalker, Epic Friendship, Fanfiction, Feels, Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Ms. Hudson is Team Mom, POV Joan, Power of Words, Season/Series 03, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock Is A Bit Not Good, Smart Joan, Smart Marcus, Snarky Joan, Snarky Sherlock, Stalking, Team as Family, Writing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 21:08:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7330702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It all starts with a published work on the internet that details how Sherlock works in the field. What it spirals out to is a stalker who begins to shadow every aspect of the lives of Sherlock, Joan and those closest to them, and those that Sherlock has chosen as his family are left with a choice: do they cower under or do they fight back?</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's More Dangerous To Lose Than Win

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GreenSkyOverMe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenSkyOverMe/gifts).



> So this was _supposed_ to be a one-shot fic for **GreenSkyOverMe** inspired by a four word sentence starter from [this list](http://penaltywaltz.tumblr.com/post/144295231457/kilgravesjessica-four-word-prompts) but it just kind of run away from me into this. This is set at a vague point in season 3 as I am only up to the end of the Kitty arc but I know it would be before Morland's arrival as I don't know his characterization and don't want him involved in this story. Hopefully I won't let this languish _too_ long because this is very interesting to me. The title comes from a quote from George Bernard Shaw ("In a battle all you need to make you fight is a little hot blood and the knowledge that it's more dangerous to lose than to win.").

"So, it was you." 

Joan didn’t look up from her laptop, continuing to scroll through and look at the list of possible causes of death for the victim in their newest case. If it had the coroners baffled, she was fairly sure Sherlock had an idea, but he was so hung up on this...well, this _slight_ that he was blowing out of proportion that he wasn’t even focusing on the case. So far he’d accused Alfredo, Ms. Hudson, Marcus, and Gregson. She was surprised he hadn’t managed to track Kitty down in hiding and accuse her as well, to be quite honest, or call Pam up from the motor pool or Alistair at the bookstore or Harlan in his math cave and accuse them either. He was _really_ reaching and she’d been surprised he’d waited so long to accuse her, really.

“No, Sherlock, it really wasn’t,” she said, reaching over for her cup of chamomile tea to take a sip.

He stood there for a minute, took a huffy breath and then came over and closed the lid of her laptop. “But it _was_ ,” he said. “There is no one left. You are the last remaining person it could have been, therefore it had to be you.”

She took a deep breath, shut her eyes for a moment, and then looked up at Sherlock. “Have you really weeded out every conceivable possibility and come to the conclusion that I was the _only_ person left who could have done it, Sherlock? Seriously? You put that big, huge brain of yours to that task instead of the case and that was what you came up with?”

He gave her a single decisive nod. “Yes.”

“Well, it was a waste of time because _I didn’t do it,_ ” she said, taking the closed laptop off her lap and setting it on the table and then getting up. She ran a hand through her hair as she began to pace in front of him. “What is the big deal, anyway?”

“The big deal, Watson, is that someone has slighted me. It is an insult to me and I want to know who did it,” Sherlock said, matching her pacing in step and stride length and pace. “Someone has taken my process and used it to make money, and all of you have been privy to it.”

“Sherlock, you _do_ remember the incident where there was the guy who was taking what you shared at meetings and making the blog about it, right?” Joan asked, stopping in her tracks. “And trust me, if I was making money off your process, I’d start by having not moved back in with you. I’d be living it up at a nice suite at the Four Seasons.” She watched as a hurt look crossed his face and she wanted to smack herself. She hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings, no matter how ridiculous he was acting. She set her hand on his arm, causing him to stop. “I was kidding, Sherlock. About the swanky suite, not about selling your process.”

“Oh,” he said quietly. “So you do not regret residing with me again?”

She shook her head. “Nope.” She squeezed his arm for a moment and then let go. “You ever think you might have an overzealous fan, maybe? Someone who might be monitoring you really closely and released the thing as...I don’t know. A labor of love? Maybe something to show how much they admire you? How much they want other people to be able to be like you?”

Sherlock tilted his head slightly as he considered that. “I hadn’t considered that,” he said, a hint of sheepishness in his voice. “It had just seemed so...intimate, as though it was a friend who had written it. Someone who was indeed close to me.”

Joan moved her hand away and then went to pick up her mug of tea so she could take a sip of it. “There’s this thing called fanfiction out in the world. It’s where people write stories about fictional characters most of the time, taking them and putting them in stories of their own creation.”

“I’ve heard of it, yes,” Sherlock said with a nod. “It was popularized during the 1960s in the Star Trek fandom.” Joan raised an eyebrow. “It was pertinent for a case.”

“Sure,” she said with a small smile. “Well, I have a young cousin who’s a fanfic writer and he goes on about it a lot, and he mentioned there’s this sub-genre called RPF and RPS. It’s about real people. So, you take real live people and you put them in stories you create. Maybe someone’s doing that with you and that thing they wrote is an attempt at RPF. I mean, I read it after you threw the hissy fit about it.”

Sherlock straightened himself up and glared slightly at that. “I did no such thing.”

“Oh, you _so_ did,” Joan said, her smile becoming a slight smirk. “Point is, it could be something like that. So maybe it’ll all just blow over. But if it doesn’t...we’ll keep an eye out. If it gets really weird, then we’ll go ask Gregson and Marcus to look into it. _After_ you give them a heartfelt apology.”

Sherlock fidgeted slightly. “I was rather abrupt with them.”

“Being a world-class jerk was more like it,” Joan said before taking a sip of her tea. “You damn near accused Marcus of having the writing skills of a second grader who couldn’t read, which is really unusual because normally you can’t stop singing his praises. There are times I’m honestly not sure which of the two of us you like more.”

“Always you, Watson,” Sherlock said. “I suppose I should make these apologies in person?”

“That would be a nice touch,” Joan said with a nod. “And if you open up my laptop and look at the page I was looking at, I was narrowing down causes of death for the murder victim. If you show up with potential causes of death and an apology, _maybe_ you’ll get in their good graces again.”

“Why show up with a potential cause of death when I can show up with an actual cause of death?” Sherlock said, waving his hand. “Finish your tea and I’ll fill you in on the way to the station.”

Joan shook her head, heaving a small sigh. “I swear, Sherlock,” she said before taking another sip of her tea. He gave her a wide grin in response, eliciting one from her despite herself. She hoped that this was the end of the issue with the strange post on the internet, but considering the lives that she and Sherlock lead, she was fairly sure this was only the beginning.


End file.
